Biden: Release of torture report is 'badge of honor'

Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the bombshell report on CIA interrogation tactics a “badge of honor” and said its public release would strengthen the United States.

“No, I think it’s a badge of honor,” Biden said when asked at POLITICO’s Women Rule Summit whether the sharply critical report by the Senate Intelligence Committee is a “black stain.”

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“Every country, every country, has engaged in activities somewhere along the line that it has not been proud of,” he added.

“Think about it, name me another country that’s prepared to stand and say, ‘This was a mistake, we should not have done what we’ve done and we will not do it again,’” Biden said to applause from the 400 people in attendance for the daylong event that featured a number of panels on promoting women in politics, business and other professions.

Biden said America will be the stronger for saying, “We made a mistake, we’re exposing it.”

“That will strengthen us worldwide,” he said. “It will not weaken us … it will make it more difficult for the mistake to ever to be able to be made again.”

Biden also praised his former Senate colleague, Republican Sen. John McCain, who took to the Senate floor Tuesday to slam the effectiveness of the CIA techniques described in the report. Biden urged the crowd to listen to McCain’s remarks, which he called “more articulate” than “anything I could say or the president could say.”

“John and I have had real, strong disagreements,” Biden said. “But take a look at John McCain’s speech he made today on this issue. Listen to John McCain. A man who had every bone in his body broken, a man who was brutally tortured, a man who spent seven years in a prison, and I strongly urge you to take a look at his speech [that] John made today, it’s breathtaking.”

In his remarks on the Senate floor, McCain said, “I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will offer more bad information than good.”

Biden appeared at POLITICO’s Women Rule Summit, held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C., with his daughter Ashley Biden.